'It's great to be back'
Stojko jumps into first place at Skate Canada
Posted: Friday November 06, 1998 12:49 AM
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Stojko landed a triple Axel-triple toe loop jump combination, hit a triple Lutz and displayed the best spins in the field of 11 AP |
KAMLOOPS, British Columbia (AP) -- Elvis Stojko took a big leap down the comeback trail Thursday night by grabbing first place in the men's short program in Skate Canada.
"It felt really good," the three-time world champ from Canada said of his 2 1/2-minute performance to Japanese taiko drums. "It's coming together.
"It's great to be back."
Russian teen Evgeny Plushenko was second. The free-skating final is Saturday night.
This is Stojko's second competition since winning silver in the Olympic Winter Games at Nagano, Japan last February, when he competed despite a painful groin injury. Stojko, 26, eased back into action with a fourth-place finish in Skate America last week at Detroit.
Evgeny Pliuta of Ukraine was third.
Stojko landed a triple Axel-triple toe loop jump combination, hit a triple Lutz and displayed the best spins in the field of 11. He omitted the quad attempt on which he fell last week at Detroit.
Plushenko also did a triple-triple combo, and baled out of a planned quad after three revolutions.
Earlier, top-seeded Xue Shen and Hongbo Zhao of China, the fourth-ranked pair in the world, were first in the short program, ahead of the surprise duo of Jamie Sale and David Pelletier of Canada.
Maria Petrova and Alexei Tikhonov of Russia were third, with another Canadian pair, national champions Kristy Sargeant and Kris Wirtz, fourth and Canada's Marie-Claude Savard-Gagnon and Luc Bradet fifth.
Sale, 21, and Pelletier, 23, competed in world championships with previous partners and had little success.
Pelletier and Sale, who competed with other partners in the past with little success, are being coached by Richard Gauthier and appear to have the potential to go a long way.
"When David came to me and said he wanted me to help him find a new partner, I said, 'David, there is only one girl I think you should skate with -- Jamie,' " Gauthier said. "I knew the chemistry would be there right away."
They had an immediate setback when Sale needed surgery last spring for tendinitis. She was sidelined for 2 1/2 months.
"We've been working really, really hard to skate our best here and make Canada proud," she said.
They were surprised to be second.
"Kristy and Kris are seventh in the world, which means they are pretty good -- better than me," Pelletier said. "And I still think they are better than me."
With no medalists from the world championships in the field, marks were pegged low. Even at that, Savard-Gagnon and Bradet got five marks under 5.0 of the possible 6.0, which was harsh considering they had not fallen or badly botched anything. Skating first had cost them.
"Without a top-five world pair here, the marks were not going to get sucked up," coach Paul Martini said. "And there were certain things that need to be a little better."
Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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